The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics) (50 page)

Something in my voice or in the spirit of this answer seemed to alter his mood. Turning towards me and attentively surveying my face by the dim light, he said in a milder tone than he had yet employed, –

‘You too have suffered, I suppose.’

‘I suffered much, at first.’

‘When was that?’

‘Two years ago; and two years hence you will be as calm as I am now, – and far, far happier, I trust, for you are a man, and free to act as you please.’
⁵

Something like a smile, but a
very
bitter one, crossed his face for a moment.

‘You have not been happy lately?’ he said with a kind of effort to regain composure, and a determination to waive the further discussion of his own calamity.

‘Happy!’ I repeated, almost provoked at such a question – ‘Could I be so, with such a husband?’

‘I have noticed a change in your appearance since the first years of your marriage,’ pursued he: ‘I observed it to – to that infernal demon,’ he muttered between his teeth – ‘and he said it was your own sour temper that was eating away your bloom: it was making you old and ugly before your time, and had already made his fireside as comfortless as a convent cell – You smile Mrs Huntingdon – nothing moves you. I wish my nature were as calm as yours!’

‘My nature was not originally calm,’ said I: ‘I have learned to appear so by dint of hard lessons, and many repeated efforts.’

At this juncture Mr Hattersley burst into the room.

‘Hallow, Lowborough!’ he began – ‘Oh! I beg your pardon,’ he exclaimed on seeing me; ‘I didn’t know it was a tête-à-tête. Cheer up, man!’ he continued, giving Lord Lowborough a thump on the
back, which caused the latter to recoil from him with looks of ineffable disgust and irritation. ‘Come, I want to speak with you a bit’

‘Speak, then.’

‘But I’m not sure it would be quite agreeable to the lady, what I have to say.’

‘Then it would not be agreeable to me,’ said his lordship, turning to leave the room.

‘Yes, it would,’ cried the other, following him into the hall. ‘If you’ve the heart of a man it would be the very ticket for you. It’s just this, my lad,’ he continued, rather lowering his voice, but not enough to prevent me from hearing every word he said, though the half-closed door stood between us: ‘I think you’re an ill-used man – nay, now, don’t flare up – I don’t want to offend you: it’s only my rough way of talking. I must speak right out you
know
, or else not at all; – and I’m come – stop now! let me explain – I’m come to offer you my services, for though Huntingdon is my friend, he’s a devilish scamp as we all know, and I’ll be
your
friend for the nonce. I know what it is you want, to make matters straight: it’s just to exchange a shot with him, and then you’ll feel yourself all right again; and if an accident happens – why, that’ll be all right too, I dare say, to a desperate fellow like you. – Come now! give me your hand, and don’t look so black upon it. Name time and place, and I’ll manage the rest.’

‘That,’ answered the more low, deliberate voice of Lord Lowborough, ‘is just the remedy my own heart – or the devil within it, suggested – to meet him, and
not to sever without blood
. Whether I or he should fall – or both, it would be an
inexpressible
relief to me, if–’

‘Just so! Well then –’

‘No!’ exclaimed his lordship with deep, determined emphasis. ‘Though I hate him from my heart, and should rejoice at any calamity that could befall him – I’ll leave him to God; and though I abhor my own life, I’ll leave that too, to Him that gave it.’

‘But you see in this case,’ pleaded Hattersley –

‘I’ll not hear you!’ exclaimed his companion, hastily turning away. ‘Not another word! I’ve enough to do against the fiend within me.’

‘Then you’re a white livered fool, and I wash my hands of you,’ grumbled the tempter as he swung himself round and departed.

‘Right, right, Lord Lowborough!’ cried I, darting out and clasping his burning hand, as he was moving away to the stairs. ‘I begin to think the world is not worthy of you!’

Not understanding this sudden ebullition, he turned upon me with a stare of gloomy, bewildered amazement that made me ashamed of the impulse to which I had yielded; but soon a more humanized expression dawned upon his countenance, and, before I could withdraw my hand, he pressed it kindly, while a gleam of genuine feeling flashed from his eyes as he murmured, –

‘God help us both!’

‘Amen!’ responded I; and we parted.

I returned to the drawing-room, where, doubtless, my presence would be expected by most, desired by one or two. In the ante-room was Mr Hattersley, railing against Lord Lowborough’s poltroonery before a select audience, viz. Mr Huntingdon, who was lounging against the table exulting in his own treacherous villainy and laughing his victim to scorn, and Mr Grimsby, standing by, quietly rubbing his hands and chuckling with fiendish satisfaction. At the glance I gave them in passing, Hattersley stopped short in his animadversions and stared like a bull calf, Grimsby glowered upon me with a leer of malignant ferocity, and my husband muttered a coarse and brutal malediction.

In the drawing-room I found Lady Lowborough, evidently in no very enviable state of mind, and struggling hard to conceal her discomposure by an overstrained affectation of unusual cheerfulness and vivacity, very uncalled-for under the circumstances, for she had herself given the company to understand that her husband had received unpleasant intelligence from home, which necessitated his immediate departure, and that he had suffered it so to bother his mind that it had brought on a bilious headache, owing to which and the preparations he judged necessary to hasten his departure, she believed they would not have the pleasure of seeing him tonight. However, she asserted, it was only a business concern, and so she did not intend it should trouble
her
. She was just saying this as I entered,
and she darted upon me such a glance of hardihood and defiance as at once astonished and revolted me.

‘But I
am
troubled,’ continued she, ‘and vexed too, for I think it my duty to accompany his lordship, and of course I am very sorry to part with all my kind friends, so unexpectedly and so soon.’

‘And yet, Annabella,’ said Esther, who was sitting beside her, ‘I never saw you in better spirits in my life.’

‘Precisely so, my love; because I wish to make the best of your society, since it appears this is to be the last night I am to enjoy it, till Heaven knows when; and I wish to leave a good impression on you all,’ – she glanced round, and seeing her aunt’s eye fixed upon her, rather too scrutinizingly, as she probably thought, she started up and continued, – ‘to which end I’ll give you a song – Shall I, aunt? shall I, Mrs Huntingdon? shall I, ladies and gentlemen – all? – Very well, I’ll do my best to amuse you.’

She and Lord Lowborough occupied the apartments next to mine. I know not how
she
passed the night, but I lay awake the greater part of it listening to his heavy step pacing monotonously up and down his dressing-room, which was nearest my chamber. Once I heard him pause and throw something out of the window, with a passionate ejaculation; and in the morning, after they were gone, a keen-bladed clasp-knife was found on the grass-plot below; a razor, likewise, was snapped in two and thrust deep into the cinders of the grate, but partially corroded by the decaying embers. So strong had been the temptation to end his miserable life, so determined his resolution to resist it.

My heart bled for him as I lay listening to that ceaseless tread. Hitherto, I had thought too much of myself, too little of him: now I forgot my own afflictions, and thought only of his – of the ardent affection so miserably wasted, the fond faith so cruelly betrayed, the – no, I will not attempt to enumerate his wrongs, – but I hated his wife and my husband more intensely than ever, and not for my sake, but for his.

‘That man,’ I thought, ‘is an object of scorn to his friends and the nice-judging world. The false wife and the treacherous friend who have wronged him are not so despised and degraded as he; and his
refusal to avenge his wrongs has removed him yet farther beyond the range of sympathy, and blackened his name with a deeper disgrace.
⁶
He knows this; and it doubles his burden of woe. He sees the injustice of it, but he cannot bear up against it; he lacks that sustaining power of self-esteem which leads a man, exulting in his own integrity, to defy the malice of traducing foes and give them scorn for scorn – or, better still, which raises him above earth’s foul and turbulent vapours, to repose in Heaven’s eternal sunshine. He knows that God is just, but cannot see his justice now: he knows this life is short, and yet death seems insufferably far away; he believes there is a future state, but so absorbing is the agony of this that he cannot realize its rapturous repose. He can but bow his head to the storm, and cling, blindly, despairingly, to what he knows to be right. Like the shipwrecked mariner cleaving to a raft, blinded, deafened, bewildered, he feels the waves sweep over him, and sees no prospect of escape; and yet he knows he has no hope but this, and still, while life and sense remain, concentrates all his energies to keep it. Oh, that I had a friend’s right to comfort him, and tell him that I never esteemed him so highly as I do this night!’

They departed early in the morning before anyone else was down, except myself, and just as I was leaving my room, Lord Lowborough was descending to take his place in the carriage where his lady was already ensconced; and Arthur (or Mr Huntingdon as I prefer calling him, for the other is my child’s name) had the gratuitous insolence to come out in his dressing-gown to bid his ‘friend’ goodbye.

‘What, going already, Lowborough!’ said he. ‘Well, good morning.’ He smilingly offered his hand.

I think the other would have knocked him down, had he not instinctively started back before that bony fist quivering with rage and clenched till the knuckles gleamed white and glistening through the skin. Looking upon him with a countenance livid with furious hate, Lord Lowborough muttered between his closed teeth a deadly execration he would not have uttered had he been calm enough to choose his words, and departed.

‘I call that an unchristian spirit now,’ said the villain. ‘But I’d never give up an old friend for the sake of a wife. You may have
mine if you like, and I call that handsome – I
can
do no more than offer restitution, can I?’

But Lowborough had gained the bottom of the stairs, and was now crossing the hall; and Mr Huntingdon, leaning over the banisters, called out, – ‘Give my love to Annabella! – and I wish you both a happy journey,’ and withdrew laughing to his chamber.

He subsequently expressed himself rather glad she was gone: ‘She was so deuced imperious and exacting,’ said he: ‘now I shall be my own man again, and feel rather more at my ease.’

I know nothing more of Lord Lowborough’s subsequent proceedings but what I have heard from Milicent, who, though she is ignorant of the cause of his separation from her cousin, has informed me that such is the case; that they keep entirely separate establishments; that she leads a gay, dashing life in town and country, while he lives in strict seclusion at his old castle in the north. There are two children, both of whom he keeps under his own protection. The son and heir is a promising child nearly the age of my Arthur, and no doubt a source of some hope and comfort to his father; but the other, a little girl between one and two,
⁷
with blue eyes and light auburn hair, he probably keeps from conscientious motives alone, thinking it wrong to abandon her to the teaching and example of such a woman as her mother. That mother never loved children, and has so little natural affection for her own that I question whether she will not regard it as a relief to be thus entirely separated from them, and delivered from the trouble and responsibility of their charge.

Not many days after the departure of Lord and Lady Lowborough, the rest of the ladies withdrew the light of their presence from Grassdale. Perhaps they might have stayed longer, but neither host nor hostess pressed them to prolong their visit – in fact, the former showed too plainly that he should be glad to get rid of them; – and Mrs Hargrave retired with her daughters and her grandchildren (there are three of them now) to the Grove. But the gentlemen remained: Mr Huntingdon, as I intimated before, was determined to keep them as long as he could; and, being thus delivered from restraint, they gave a loose to all their innate madness, folly, and brutality, and made the house night after night one scene of riot,
uproar, and confusion. Who among them behaved the worst, or who the best, I cannot distinctly say; for, from the moment I discovered how things would be, I formed the resolution of retreating upstairs or locking myself into the library the instant I withdrew from the dining-room, and not coming near them again till breakfast; – but this I must say for Mr Hargrave, that from all
I
could see of him, he was a model of decency, sobriety, and gentlemanly manners
in comparison
with the rest

He did not join the party till a week or ten days after the arrival of the other guests; for he was still on the continent when they came, and I cherished the hope that he would not accept the invitation. Accept it he did, however, but his conduct towards me, for the first few weeks, was exactly what I should have wished it to be – perfectly civil and respectful without any affectation of despondency or dejection, and sufficiently distant without haughtiness, or any of such remarkable stiffness or iciness of demeanour as might be calculated to disturb or puzzle his sister, or call forth the investigation of his mother.

My greatest source of uneasiness, in this time of trial, was my son, whom his father and his father’s friends delighted to encourage in all the embryo vices a little child can show, and to instruct in all the evil habits he could acquire – in a word, to ‘make a man of him’
¹
was one of their staple amusements; and I need say no more to justify my alarm on his account, and my determination to deliver him at any hazard from the hands of such instructors. I first attempted to keep him always with me or in the nursery, and gave Rachel particular injunctions never to let him come down to dessert as long as these ‘gentlemen’ stayed; but it was no use; these orders were immediately countermanded and overruled by his father: he was not going to have the little fellow moped to death between an old nurse and a cursed fool of a mother.
²
So the little fellow came down every evening, in spite of his cross mamma, and learnt to tipple wine like papa, to swear like Mr Hattersley, and to have his own way like a man, and sent mamma to the devil when she tried to prevent him. To see such things done with the roguish naïveté of that pretty little child and hear such things spoken by that small infantile voice, was as peculiarly piquant and irresistibly droll to them as it was inexpressibly distressing and painful to me; and when he had set the table in a roar,
³
he would look round delightedly upon them all, and add his shrill laugh to theirs. But if that beaming blue eye rested on me, its light would vanish for a moment, and he would say, in some concern, – ‘Mamma, why don’t
you
laugh? Make her laugh, papa – she never will.’